Tuesday, 13 December 2016

My thoughts on the Microsoft price increase

As has become the norm now, Microsoft along with other vendors in the channel have raised their pricing across a range of different services for on-prem products and also cloud-based services. These increases haven’t come as a surprise with market fluctuations caused by things like Brexit and other changes in the economy. Bringing pricing in line with our European counterparts is completely normal and I’m sure there was a loud cheer with everyone trading in euros. Previously, partners across Europe could be buying in sterling and seeing savings of up to 20% so this could hinder some of the European partners who can only transact in euros. So up to this point we’ve had it good in the UK.

There are a couple of gripes though! The first question to ask is why Microsoft are increasing the cloud-based services by up to 22% and the on-prem services by 13%? The whole message from Microsoft over the past few years has been around a Cloud first, Mobile first world. This doesn’t seem to support that and partners, in our experience, are confused. Was cloud pricing that much cheaper than on-prem before and this brings them in line too? I’ve asked these questions of Microsoft but can’t get a definitive answer.

The second gripe is the timing. Changing the pricing so it’s the 1st of January means that much more work needs to take place over a traditionally quieter period, with more support calls raised and questions around it. Lots of people are already booked off for the holiday period and it would have been good for Microsoft to acknowledge this. Would holding the price increase off for a month really have made that much difference?

It is what it is now, but please Microsoft and all vendors thinking of increasing prices in the future, be mindful of things that happen in the real world that affect everyone in your supply chain down to the end customer. We’d all appreciate it. Have a great Christmas break!